Loeenzo fageesten



NlTE dramas ATENT (Enrica JAMES B. MARSH,

PROCESS OF TESTING OF SAME PLACE.

FACTITEOUS BUTTER.

SPEQIFZGATIQN forming part of Letters Patent No. 34%,730, dated June 29,18186.

Application filed July 6, 1885. Serial No. 170,837. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LORENZO FAGERSTEN,Q citizen of the United States,residing at Ohi cago, in the county of Cook and State of lili-11ois,haveinvented a new and useful Improved Process of Treating Butterand its Bogus Oompounds, whereby the genuine may be distinguished fromthe spurious article, of which the following is a specification.

It is wellknown that enormous quantities of bogus-butter compounds aredailyplaced upon the market, and that while it has been found mostimportant for the welfare of the public to provide some ready andgenerally available 15 meansfor detecting the presence of any of thebogus-butter compounds, which have of late been discovered by scientistsboth at home and abroad to be highly pregnant with various low forms oforganic life, yet, as a matter of fact,

the attempts heretofore made for detecting bogus-butter compounds-such,for example, as by saponification-have either proved unreliable or tootediousand expensive to render the same practically available to andwithin the range of either the public generally or even a majority ofexperts.

The object of my invention is to provide a s1mple,certain,and effectiveprocess for treating blllili6l,0l any article represented to be andresembling butter,so as to produce an article presenting to the eye anappearance which shall infallibly indicate whether the article contalnssimply the elements of pure genuine butter,or whether itis an imitationof such and 5 contains more or less of any of the great V21 riety ofbogus-butter compounds.

The prominent and distinctive features of my process consist i nsubjecting the article rep resented to be butter to agraduallydncrcasing and uniformlydistributed temperature up to but notabove such point as will cause a curd to first appear in those proteinecompounds which coagulate at the lowest temperature of all otherproteine compounds which may be prescut, and in then arresting thetemperature at such point,so as to prevent as far as possible anychemical change or decomposition of the fat or the elimination of anyexcess of water or any other impurities from taking place, and

further subjecting the article for a period of about ten minutes to atemperature approxi- I mating to but not above said carding-point, in

' order to complete the carding, and thereby bring the article into acondition which will clearly and invariably indicate the nature of thecompound and the percentage of genuine butter if present in the mixture.

In carrying my invention into cffcct,a quantity of the real or supposedbutter is placed within asuitable transparent receptacle-such, forexample,as a glass tube closed at one end, erase-called hydrometer-jar.Thisglass receptacle is then heated by exposing it to agradually-increasing temperature in such a way that the heat shallbeuniformly distributed around the glass receptacle. This can beattained in several ways-as, for example, the glass vessel can be placedin a water bath which is gradually raised in temperature by the directapplication of heat to the vessel containing the water, or, as anotherillustration, gas or air might be used in lieu of the water, thedesideratum in all cases being that the re ceptacle containing thebutter or butter compound shall be heated gradually by indirect heat,whereby the said article shall be grad: ually raised in temperature byheat uniformly distributed throughout the mass, and any liability of thecompound being heated above the cnrding-point avoided, since ampleopportunity is afforded for frequent inspection of the condition of thearticle. As the temperature rises the compound must be inspected frequently, so as to detect the instant the curding-point is reached, atwhich moment the further increase of temperature is checked,but thereceptacle containing the article still subjccted to a temperature notabove the curdingpoint,this being readily attained by removing thevessel containing the water bath, for example, from the direct heat ofthe flame or heater over or upon which ithas been placed, the heatremaining in the water bath, and the two vessels being found sufficientto then complete the curding in about ten minutes. I have found byexperiment that without such re moval from the direct heat as soon asthe curding-point has been reached an entire change in the character ofthe results will be effected and the object in view defeated. After thelast-mentioned step, the resulting article or mixture can be readilyinspected by looking through the side of the glass vessel,the opticalfeatures therein manifested-such as absorption, refraction, and thepeculiar phenomenon known as complementary colors, which causetransparency, opaqueness, and various colors-serving to indicate thecharacter or nature of the mixture.

It will be found in genuine butter treated by my process that itsquality is indicated by the appearance of the fat, which will betransparent, and that the caseine or proteine compounds precipitatedwill amount to not less than three-tenths part of the whole mixture,

but that in bogus-butter compounds the fat will be, opaque, and theprecipitate, if any, will fall short of three-tenthspart,every fractionless than three-tenths part indicating a correspondiugly-increasedadmixture of foreign fats.

Thecurding-pointofthecaseinein thearticle depends in a measure upon themelting-point .of the fatty compound, but is not coincident with suchpoint, as the curding point increases regularly with the decrease offree lactic or mineral acid present in bogus-butter compounds.

Experiment demonstrates that the curdingpoint varies in differentarticles of butter or bogus-butter compounds, and since it is vital tomy process that the increase of temperature above the carding-pointshould be avoided,

the eurding-point will in each instance be determined by observation.This can be readily determined by inspecting the character of the ineltedbutter orbogus-butter compounds, since as soon as the curding-pointis reached the article assumes a slightly flecked or curded appearance,which indicates that further increase of temperature should be checked,and that the article should then be subjected for a short period to aheat approximating to but not above the carding-point, so as to completethe carding. By such means only those proteine compounds which coagulateat the lowest temperature will be eliminated,and the elimination ofwater or any further chemical or mechanical change will be prevented.

What I claim as my invention is' The herein-described process oftreating butter and its bogus compounds, consisting in subjecting thearticle to indirect heat up to but not beyond the curding-point, andthen subjecting the same to a temperature approximating to but not abovethe curding-point for a period, substantially as set forth, to completethe carding process, for the purpose described.

LORENZO FAGERSTEN.

Witnesses:

OHAs. G. PAGE, 7M, H. ROWE.

